City (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

by Clifford D. Simak

  The visor was in one corner of the room, an almost forgotten piece of furniture, something that was scarcely used. There was no need to use it. All the world was here in the city of Geneva.

  Webster rose, moved towards it, stopped and thought. The dial settings were listed in the log book, but where was the log book? More than likely somewhere in his desk.

  He went back to the desk, started going through the drawers. Excited now, he pawed furiously, like a terrier digging for a bone.

  Jenkins, the ancient robot, scrubbed his metallic chin with metallic fingers. It was a thing he did when he was deep in thought, a meaningless, irritating gesture he had picked up from long association with the human race.

  His eyes went back to the little black dog sitting on the floor beside him.

  ‘So the wolf was friendly,’ said Jenkins. ‘Offered you the rabbit.’

  Ebenezer jigged excitedly upon his bottom. ‘He was one of them we fed last winter. The pack that came up to the house and we tried to tame them.’

  ‘Would you know the wolf again?’

  Ebenezer nodded. ‘I got his scent,’ he said. ‘I’d remember him.’

  Shadow shuffled his feet against the floor. ‘Look, Jenkins, ain’t you going to smack him one? He should have been listening and he ran away. He had no business chasing rabbits—’

  Jenkins spoke sternly. ‘You’re the one that should get the smacking, Shadow. For your attitude. You are assigned to Ebenezer, you should be part of him. You aren’t an individual. You’re just Ebenezer’s hands. If he had hands, he’d have no need of you. You aren’t his mentor nor his conscience. Just his hands. Remember that.’

  Shadow shuffled his feet rebelliously. ‘I’ll run away,’ he said.

  ‘Join the wild robots, I suppose,’ said Jenkins.

  Shadow nodded. ‘They’d be glad to have me. They’re doing things. They need all the help that they can get.’

  ‘They’d bust you up for scrap,’ Jenkins told him sourly. ‘You have no training, no abilities that would make you one of them.’

  He turned to Ebenezer. ‘We have other robots.’

  Ebenezer shook his head. ‘Shadow is all right. I can handle him. We know one another. He keeps me from getting lazy, keeps me on my toes.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Jenkins. ‘You two run along. And if you ever happen to be out chasing rabbits, Ebenezer, and run into this wolf again, try to cultivate him.’

  The rays of the westering sun were streaming through the windows, touching the age-old room with the warmth of a late spring evening.

  Jenkins sat quietly in the chair, listening to the sounds that came from outside – the tinkle of cowbells, the yapping of the puppies, the ringing thud of an axe splitting fireplace logs.

  Poor little fellow, thought Jenkins. Sneaking out to chase a rabbit when he should have been listening. Too far – too fast. Have to watch that. Have to keep them from breaking down. Come fall and we’ll knock off work for a week or two and have some coon hunts. Do them a world of good.

  Although there’d come a day when there’d be no coon hunts, no rabbit chasing – the day when the dogs finally had tamed everything, when all the wild things would be thinking, talking, working beings. A wild dream and a far one – but, thought Jenkins, no wilder and no farther than some of the dreams of man.

  Maybe even better than the dreams of man, for they held none of the ruthlessness that the human race had planned, aimed at none of the mechanistic brutality the human race had spawned.

  A new civilization, a new culture, a new way of thought. Mystic, perhaps, and visionary, but so had man been visionary. Probing into mysteries that man had brushed by as unworthy of his time, as mere superstition that could have no scientific basis.

  Things that go bump in the night. Things that prowl around a house and the dogs get up and growl and there are no tracks in the snow. Dogs howling when someone dies.

  The dogs knew. The dogs had known long before they had been given tongues to talk, contact lenses to read. They had not come along the road as far as men – they were not cynical and sceptic. They believed the things they heard and sensed. They did not invent superstition as a form of wishful thinking, as a shield against the things unseen.

  Jenkins turned back to the desk again, picked up the pen, bent above the note-book in front of him. The pen screeched as he pushed it along.

  Ebenezer reports friendliness in wolf. Recommend council detach Ebenezer from listening and assign him to contact the wolf.

  Wolves, mused Jenkins, would be good friends to have. They’d make splendid scouts. Better than the dogs. Tougher, faster, sneaky. They could watch the wild robots across the river and relieve the dogs. Could keep an eye on the mutant castles.

  Jenkins shook his head. Couldn’t trust anyone these days. The robots seemed to be all right. Were friendly, dropped in at times, helped out now and then. Real neighbourly, in fact. But you never knew. And they were building machines.

  The mutants never bothered anyone, were scarcely seen, in fact. But they had to be watched, too. Never knew what devilment they might be up to. Remember what they’d done to man. That dirty trick with Juwainism, handing it over at a time when it would doom the race.

  Men. They were gods to us and now they’re gone. Left us on our own. A few in Geneva, of course, but they can’t be bothered, have no interest in us.

  He sat in the twilight, thinking of the whiskies he had carried, of the errands he had run, of the days when Websters had lived and died within these walls.

  And now – father confessor to the dogs. Cute little devils and bright and smart – and trying hard.

  A bell buzzed softly and Jenkins jerked upright in his seat. It buzzed again and a green light winked on the televisor. Jenkins came to his feet, stood unbelieving, staring at the winking light.

  Someone calling!

  Someone calling after almost a thousand years!

  He staggered forward, dropped into the chair, reached put with fumbling fingers to the toggle, tripped it over.

  The wall before him melted away and he sat facing a man across a desk. Behind the man the flames of a fireplace lighted up a room with high, stained-glass windows.

  ‘You’re Jenkins,’ said the man and there was something in his face that jerked a cry from Jenkins.

  ‘You . . . you—’

  ‘I’m Jon Webster,’ said the man.

  Jenkins pressed his hands flat against the top of the televisor, sat straight and stiff, afraid of the unrobotlike emotions that welled within his metal being.

  ‘I would have known you anywhere,’ said Jenkins. ‘You have the look of them. I should recognize one of you. I worked for you long enough. Carried drinks and . . . and—’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Webster. ‘Your name has come down with us. We remembered you.’

  ‘You are in Geneva, Jon?’ And then Jenkins remembered. ‘I meant, sir.’

  ‘No need of it,’ said Webster. ‘I’d rather have it Jon. And, yes, I’m in Geneva. But I’d like to see you. I wonder if I might.’

  ‘You mean come out here?’

  Webster nodded.

  ‘But the place is overrun with dogs, sir.’

  Webster grinned. ‘The talking dogs?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jenkins, ‘and they’ll be glad to see you. They know all about the family. They sit around at night and talk themselves to sleep with stories from the old days and . . . and—’

  ‘What is it, Jenkins?’

  ‘I’ll be glad to see you, too. It has been so lonesome!’

  God had come.

  Ebenezer shivered at the thought, crouching in the dark. If Jenkins knew I was here, he thought, he’d whale my hide for fair. Jenkins said we were to leave him alone, for a while, at least.

  Ebenezer crept forward on fur-soft pads, sniffed at the study door. And the door was open – open by the barest crack!

  He crouched on his belly, listening, and there was not a thing to hear. Just a scent, an
unfamiliar, tangy scent that made the hair crawl along his back in swift, almost unbearable ecstasy.

  He glanced quickly over his shoulder, but there was no movement. Jenkins was out in the dining-room, telling the dogs how they must behave, and Shadow was off somewhere tending to some robot business.

  Softly, carefully, Ebenezer pushed at the door with his nose and the door swung wider. Another push and it was half open.

  The man sat in front of the fireplace, in the easy-chair, long legs crossed, hands clasped across his stomach.

  Ebenezer crouched tighter against the floor, a low involuntary whimper, in his throat.

  At the sound Jon Webster jerked erect.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he asked

  Ebenezer froze against the floor, felt the pumping of his heart jerking at his body.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Webster asked once more and then he saw the dog.

  His voice was softer when he spoke again. ‘Come in, feller. Come on in.’

  Ebenezer did not stir.

  Webster snapped his fingers at him. ‘I won’t hurt you. Come on in. Where are all the others?’

  Ebenezer tried to rise, tried to crawl along the floor, but his bones were rubber and his blood was water. And the man was striding towards him, coming in long strides across the floor.

  He saw the man bending over him, felt strong hands beneath his body, knew that he was being lifted up. And the scent that he had smelled at the open door – the overpowering god-scent – was strong within his nostrils.

  The hands held him tight against the strange fabric the man wore instead of fur and a voice crooned at him – not words, but comforting.

  ‘So you came to see me,’ said Jon Webster. ‘You sneaked away and you came to see me.’

  Ebenezer nodded weakly. ‘You aren’t angry, are you? You aren’t going to tell Jenkins?’

  Webster shook his head. ‘No, I won’t tell Jenkins.’

  He sat down and Ebenezer sat in his lap, staring at his face – a strong, lined face with the lines deepened by the flare of the flames within the fireplace.

  Webster’s hand came up and stroked Ebenezer’s head and Ebenezer whimpered with doggish happiness.

  ‘It’s like coming home,’ said Webster and he wasn’t talking to the dog. ‘It’s like you’ve been away for a long, long time and then you come home again. And it’s so long you don’t recognize the place. Don’t know the furniture, don’t recognize the floor plan. But you know by the feel of it that it’s an old familiar place and you are glad you came.’

  ‘I like it here,’ said Ebenezer and he meant Webster’s lap, but the man misunderstood.

  ‘Of course, you do,’ he said. ‘It’s your home as well as mine. More your home, in fact, for you stayed here and took care of it while I forgot about it.’

  He patted Ebenezer’s head and pulled Ebenezer’s ears.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Ebenezer.’

  ‘And what do you do, Ebenezer?’

  ‘I listen.’

  ‘You listen?’

  ‘Sure, that’s my job. I listen for the cobblies.’

  ‘And you hear the cobblies?’

  ‘Sometimes. I’m not very good at it. I think about chasing rabbits and I don’t pay attention.’

  ‘What do cobblies sound like?’

  ‘Different things. Sometimes they walk and other times they just go bump. And once in a while they talk. Although oftener, they think.’

  ‘Look here, Ebenezer, I don’t seem to place these cobblies.’

  ‘They aren’t any place,’ said Ebenezer. ‘Not on this earth, at least.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Like there was a big house,’ said Ebenezer. ‘A big house with lots of rooms. And doors between the rooms. And if you’re in one room, you can hear whoever’s in the other rooms, but you can’t get to them.’

  ‘Sure you can,’ said Webster. ‘All you have to do is go through the door.’

  ‘But you can’t open the door,’ said Ebenezer. ‘You don’t even know about the door. You think this one room you’re in is the only room in all the house. Even if you did know about the door you couldn’t open it.’

  ‘You’re talking about dimensions.’

  Ebenezer wrinkled his forehead in worried thought. ‘I don’t know that word you said, Dimensions. What I told you was the way Jenkins told it to us. He said it wasn’t really a house and it wasn’t really rooms and the things we heard probably weren’t like us.’

  Webster nodded to himself. That was the way one would have to do. Have to take it easy. Take it slow. Don’t confuse them with big names. Let them get the idea first and then bring in the more exact and scientific terminology. And more than likely it would be a manufactured terminology. Already there was a coined word. Cobblies – the things behind the wall, the things that one hears and cannot identify – the dwellers in the next room.

  Cobblies.

  The cobblies will get you if you don’t watch out.

  That would be the human way. Can’t understand a thing. Can’t see it. Can’t test it. Can’t analyse it. OK, it isn’t there. It doesn’t exist. It’s a ghost, a goblin, a cobbly.

  The cobblies will get you—

  It’s simpler that way, more comfortable. Scared? Sure, but you forget it in the light. And it doesn’t plague you, haunt you. Think hard enough and you wish it away. Make it a ghost or goblin and you can laugh at it – in the daylight.

  A hot, wet tongue rasped across Webster’s chin and Ebenezer wriggled with delight.

  ‘I like you,’ said Ebenezer. ‘Jenkins never held me this way. No one’s ever held me this way.’

  ‘Jenkins is busy,’ said Webster.

  ‘He sure is,’ agreed Ebenezer. ‘He writes things down in a book. Things that us dogs hear when we are listening and things that we should do.’

  ‘You’ve heard about the Websters?’ asked the man.

  ‘Sure. We know all about them. You’re a Webster. We didn’t think there were any more of them.’

  ‘Yes, there is,’ said Webster. ‘There’s been one here all the time. Jenkins is a Webster.’

  ‘He never told us that.’

  ‘He wouldn’t.’

  The fire had died down and the room had darkened. The sputtering flames chased feeble flickers across the walls and floor.

  And something else. Faint rustlings, faint whisperings, as if the very walls were talking. An old house with long memories and a lot of living tucked within its structure. Two thousand years of living. Built to last and it had lasted. Built to be a home and it still was a home – a solid place that put its arms around one and held one close and warm, claimed one for its own.

  Footsteps walked across his brain – footsteps from the long ago, footsteps that had been silenced to the final echo centuries before. The walking of the Websters. Of the ones that went before me, the ones that Jenkins waited on from their day of birth to the hour of death.

  History. Here is history. History stirring in the drapes and creeping on the floor, sitting in the corners, watching from the wall. Living history that a man can feel in the bones of him and against his shoulder blades – the impact of the long dead eyes that come back from the night.

  Another Webster, eh? Doesn’t look like much. Worthless. The breed’s played out. Not like we were in our day. Just about the last of them.

  Jon Webster stirred. ‘No, not the last of them,’ he said. ‘I have a son.’

  Well, it doesn’t make much difference. He says he has a son. But he can’t amount to much—

  Webster started from the chair, Ebenezer slipping from his lap.

  ‘That’s not true,’ cried Webster. ‘My son—’

  And then sat down again.

  His son out in the woods with bow and arrows, playing a game, having fun.

  A hobby, Sara had said before she climbed the hill to take a hundred years of dreams.

  A hobby. Not a business. Not a way of life. Not neces
sity.

  A hobby.

  An artificial thing. A thing that had no beginning and no end. A thing a man could drop at any minute and no one would ever notice.

  Like cooking up recipes for different kinds of drinks.

  Like painting pictures no one wanted.

  Like going around with a crew of crazy robots begging people to let you redecorate their homes.

  Like writing history no one cares about.

  Like playing Indian or caveman or pioneer with bow and arrows.

  Like thinking up centuries-long dreams for men and women who are tired of life and yearn for fantasy.

  The man sat in the chair, staring at the nothingness that spread before his eyes, the dread and awful nothingness that became to-morrow and to-morrow.

  Absent-mindedly his hands came together and the right thumb stroked the back of the left hand.

  Ebenezer crept forward through the fire-flared darkness, put his front paws on the man’s knee and looked into his face.

  ‘Hurt your hand?’ he asked.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Hurt your hand? You’re rubbing it.’

  Webster laughed shortly. ‘No, just warts.’ He showed them to the dog.

  ‘Gee, warts!’ said Ebenezer. ‘You don’t want them, do you?’

  ‘No,’ Webster hesitated. ‘No, I guess I don’t. Never got around to having them taken off.’

  Ebenezer dropped his nose and nuzzled the back of Webster’s hand.

  ‘There you are,’ he announced triumphantly.

  ‘There I’m what?’

  ‘Look at the warts,’ invited Ebenezer.

  A log fell in the fire and Webster lifted his hand, looked at it in the flare of light.

  The warts were gone. The skin was smooth and clean.

  Jenkins stood in the darkness and listened to the silence, the soft sleeping silence that left the house to shadows, to the half-forgotten footsteps, the phrase spoken long ago, the tongues that murmured in the walls and rustled in the drapes.